All Good Things
by GalaxyPest
Summary: Hyperion has been completely eradicated from Pandora, but before celebrations can begin, a new threat arises almost immediately. War is coming, but with who? How do the guardians and vaults fit into it? And what other danger lurks hidden from them all? All of Pandora's greatest warriors teaming up to stop a war, what could go wrong?
1. Chapter 1

The sound of footsteps down the long corridor were all but deaf to the ear as they were overrun with loud music ringing from the speakers throughout the facility.

Rhys bobbed his head along to the tune as he walked, sliding and clicking his fingers, thankful no-one was watching. No-one was there too watch, no humans at least.

"Nice work Steve! Keep it up!" He called to a robot at the end of the hall who was picking boxes off've the floor and placing them onto a conveyor belt, Steve did not respond.

"Jason! awesome stuff, Warren! love what you do, Nathan—"

He pointing at his eyes then to the robot who had stopped and turned to 'look' at him, 'look' because technically it didn't have any eyes.

"I'm watching you after last Wednesday bud."

The robot turned back, continuing with it's work as it's boss walked on towards the front door.

Rhys straightened his jacket and smoothed back his hair standing in front of the entrance. He grinned as the computer let out a long beep, indicating the doors were about to open. "Huge plans for today!" He said aloud, force of habit, "Today—"

He was abruptly cut off by an explosion of fire from directly in front of him, the wave of heat knocking him off of his feet and sending him crashing onto the floor, sliding a few metres. Rhys looked up just in time to see the most terrifying woman he'd ever seen step over what now remained of his doors. Her red hair whipped around wildly and her eyes burned white, but perhaps her most alarming feature were the giant fire-wreathed wings erupting out of her back.

"IS YOUR NAME RHYS?!" Her voice felt like fire in his ears and dripped with loathing, it scared him so much he didn't even dare to not answer let alone lie.

"Yes." He squeaked, shrinking to twice his size as she started walking forwards.

"YOU," She grabbed onto his collar and dragged him to his knees, "ARE DEAD!"


	2. Chapter 2

Fiona didn't know what she expected a job as a vault hunter would include, but if someone had told her that only 2 months after opening her first vault she would be standing on a flying city, standing in-between her friend and an angry siren, she would've shot them thinking they were a psycho. As it was, her current position made her seem more than a little crazy.

"Hey chica! Long time no see," A thin man grinned off to the side, Fiona recognised him as the sniper who she'd fought with Athena, "don't worry Lil, she's a vault hunter too." The siren, Lilith seemed extremely displeased at this.

"Well, HE isn't." She growled, pointing accusingly at the younger man who lay sprawled on the ground behind Fiona, propped up on one arm with the other robotic one waving in the air.

"I surrender!" He called, Fiona turned to glare at him, "I—"

"Rhys!" She hissed, "Shut up!"

"Right, sorry…" Rhys looked down, he was obviously terrified of the siren judging by the lack of a snarky comeback.

"We don't just kill anyone, especially those getting the OK from vault hunters." Mordecai tried to reason with Lilith, "Even if he's taken over the second-to-worst company on the planet."

"And used to work for the worst." Lilith grimaced, but took a step back, focusing her attention now on the young woman in front of Rhys. "What's your name."

"Fiona." Fiona replied, arms unfolding to drop by her sides.

"Not very wise of you to step in-between an angry siren and a Hyperion dirtbag, but I appreciate the balls." That was as close as she was going to get to a compliment Fiona reckoned.

"Thanks? I guess…" Fiona adjusted her hat and glanced back at Rhys, who was now starting to gain a little more confidence and stood up. Not good as far as she was concerned, a slip of his tongue and they could all end up in an even worse situation than this.

Thankfully at that moment a few very familiar faces graced the stand-off. A pale and irritated looking woman walked towards them, leading Fiona's sister Sasha and their… friend? August.

"Athena!" Fiona called in relief, after all, they had spent much time together, and she would say they were close friends. Athena actually smiled back, putting her hands on her hips.

"It's good to see you."

Sasha also smirked, giving a small wave, "Having fun Fi?"

"Never better." She replied, just as Rhys came to stand beside her, grinning like an idiot as he saw Sasha.

"Hey Sash! It's been a while, how've you b— OH MY GOD! It's you!"

The familiar suit of the assassin who'd helped them defeat the Traveller only a couple months ago seemed to appear out of thin air. He turned to look at Rhys who bit his lip in excitement, Sasha rolling her eyes at Fiona all the while.

"I thought you'd be here/It's good to see you again/Especially now." He said this addressing all of them, but looked over at Fiona at the end, nodding in respect.

"Hey, can I be the first to ask what the heck we're doing here?" August butted in, folding his arms with a snarl, "What?" He asked innocently as Sasha glared at him.

"We need all the Vault Hunters.. and fighters we can get," Athena nodded to Sasha who smiled before continuing, "because, apparently, a war is coming."

"A war?" Rhys questioned, no longer pouting over receiving zero attention from the assassin. "What kind of war?"

"We don't know."

"All our information comes from a guardian, who doesn't seem to know anything other than it's coming." Lilith explained, shooting a glare at Rhys for looking at her for too long.

"A guardian? Wow." Sasha frowned before looking at Fiona, she could tell she was also thinking of their little experience inside the Traveller fighting the same creatures.

"It seems peaceful, as far as we've seen. Plus should it decide to go rogue, it's now got a pretty big group of Pandora's most badass warriors to face."

"How… many Vault Hunters have you got here?" Fiona asked hesitantly.

"And follow up question if I may, where is here?" Rhys added holding up a finger, almost as if he was back in school asking the teacher a question.

"We have twelve, now that you're here," She gestured to Fiona.

"My.. fiancee is collecting the last one now." Athena smiled beside herself, Sasha and Fiona smiled at her.

"Although I'm still not sure about the last one." Lilith grimaced, having completely ignored Rhys' question.

"I told you, he's a good fighter, and not a bad guy, not like the other two." Athena seemed lost in thought, glaring at the ground for a second as the sky was suddenly filled with a buzzing sound.

A small ship appeared, hovering next to the edge of the city before someone hopped off. They lifted a hand in farewell as the ship flew off before turning to grin at his friends.

"Vaughn!" Rhys embraced the shorter bearded man who was dressed a lot like a bandit, though he did not act the part.

"Rhys!" He hugged back, "Oh man I've missed you so much!"

"Me too bud, me too" They laughed before Lilith interrupted clearing her throat. The pair turned to look at the glaring woman.

"You the leader of that Hyperion cult?"

"The children of Helios are not a 'cult'," Fiona was mildly surprised the Vaughn held his ground under the siren's glare, "I'm more of an overseer than a leader per-say, but I assure you we are nothing but peaceful—"

"Yeah, I know." Lilith waved him off with a hand, "You hippies aren't causing any trouble, all I want to know is; can you fight?"

If Vaughn was offended by the jab, he didn't show it, only nodding with a smile, "We're not exactly the strongest physically… but we're happy to help as much as we possibly can!"

"That's all I wanted to hear." Lilith finished before finally turning to look at the nervous executive. "Now, I have one question for you," She pointed up at the Pandora's only moon; Elpis, without taking her eyes off of him and he already knew what was coming.

"What happened to Helios?"

—

"That's actually a… really long story…" Rhys swallowed anxiously, "mind if I give you the quick version?" He glanced quickly at Fiona who only gave him a sympathetic smile. Not exactly helpful.

"Fine. I've had enough of long stories for now anyway." Athena rolled her eyes at Lilith's comment, but focused her attention on them anyway, keen to hear the story.

"Okay so," Rhys wracked his brain for the right way to approach the tale, before finally choosing the right words, "I guess it all started with… a con…"

Despite him limiting it only to vital information, it still took half-an-hour to tell the story. He blamed Fiona, Vaughn, Sasha, and even August's interjections.

Only when it came to the part on the ride to Helios did he hesitate, before letting Fiona describe what happened in detail. Lilith seemed to have heard of Scooter's sacrifice, but appreciated the background information, promising to tell Moxxi and Ellie after Fiona told her his last wishes.

Rhys actually thought she wasn't as bad as she'd first seemed for a second, before she went back to snapping at him to continue, and hurry up.

As Rhys finished the tale he tensed, waiting for someone to say something but everyone was silent. His friends had all played along with his angle and didn't mention the one thing he'd left out, only shooting him confused or annoyed glances, the latter especially with August.

Then, finally, Lilith talked.

"Why did you bring down Helios?"

He knew the question had been coming, and had an answer prepared, even if it wasn't at all convincing; "I'd worked there for so long, and everyone there was such an asshole." He said with bitter resentment, that much wasn't a lie, "It didn't feel one-hundred percent right, but taking down the station was the only was to escape…" He paused before clarifying, "Y'know, because of the lockdown."

Everyone was silent for a minute and he could tell Lilith didn't buy it, but she tilted her upper chin and looked away anyway, as if done with the conversation.

"That story has more holes than a bullet-riddled skag." Mordecai chuckled as Lilith paced on the spot, she turned to look back at Rhys after a minute.

"You seem to be a pretty good hacker, according to your version of the events."

"Yup, well…" Rhys awkwardly smoothed back his hair with one hand, "I'm preeeetty good…" Fiona and Sasha exchanged disappointed looks which he very much noticed.

"And that Atlas base, how'd you escape that while being held hostage?"

Crap, Rhys hadn't thought of an answer for that. Luckily, Fiona stepped in as soon as she noticed him falter.

"With some quick thinking on my behalf, we used a smoke grenade to sneak out then attack from behind. It was pretty easy to escape in the chaos from the Atlas security." A complete and utter lie, but with her confident smile, Lilith seemed convinced.

"Alright, I'll buy your tale for now." She shot a glare at Rhys, "Even though I can tell you are hiding something,"

Rhys blinked in surprise, as if saying _'Who? Me?'_ , but kept his mouth shut, "we need all the help we can get right now." After she finished speaking no-one said anything only standing around awkwardly until she spoke up again with a sigh. "I'll introduce you to the others, and reunite you with your other friends, let's go." She walked off quickly leaving everyone else to catch-up hurriedly.

Rhys however, didn't move. It was terrifying to keep secrets from Lilith, but he knew it would only end in his demise if he admitted the truth. The thing that really bothered him now though, was the guilt weighing down on his shoulders of the truth he'd kept from his only friends, and the only people he cared about.

Feeling as if it was holding a lead weight, he reached into the pocket of his jacket, feeling for the object he knew was still there, where it always was.

He rubbed a finger over it despondently as he watched Fiona, Vaughn and Sasha laughing together in amongst the other Vault hunters, leaders and warriors…


	3. Chapter 3

The citizens of Sanctuary were not as happy as they used to be by the sight of new vault hunters. Back when Handsome Jack's shadow had loomed over Pandora, any and every person willing to pick up a gun and fight was glorified. But now, people avoided them like the plague.

Fiona watched as they gave their group a wide berth, some even ducking into their houses when they saw them approaching.

"They'll get used to you eventually." Lilith reassured as yet another civilian jumped into a building which Fiona thought looked a lot like a shop. Despite her casual facade Fiona could tell Lilith was worried for the people of Sanctuary by the way she kept their pace slow and talked louder than usual to Mordecai and Brick before they came around a corner. Despite her antagonistic nature, she knew Lilith was more sympathetic than she let on, and she knew that she'd eventually come to like Rhys… eventually…

Speaking of mr. roboto, he was definitely not doing himself any favours keeping secrets, and sure she was worried for him, but she was mostly annoyed.

"We are here." Zero spoke up, stopping in front of a crumbling complex, they were just outside of the centre of town.

"Doesn't look like much." Rhys scoffed, walking unto stand next to Vaughn with his arms folded. Lilith didn't look back at him, resigning instead to ignore the comment.

"This is where the rest of the vault hunters are, and where you will be staying." Fiona got the feeling she would rather be ripping off her own arm than inviting Rhys to stay in her city. "You might as well go in, get yourselves acquainted." She turned to Fiona and Sasha now, "You need any help, just come to Headquarters, or ask around at one of the shops. I'm sure Mox or Marcus would be more than happy to help you out."

August rolled his eyes as she walked away, Brick and Mordecai walking after her, chatting loudly.

Fiona turned to look hesitantly at Athena who gestured with a nod towards the building.

"You'll be fine." She said, "You're one of them, don't forget that."

"You're coming in with us right?" Vaughn asked stepping forward, Athena's hard gaze surprisingly softened a little.

"Sorry, but Janey's due back any minute now. And I have to be there when she arrives." She said, starting off in a different direction than Lilith had. "See you later."

Vaughn and Rhys walked towards the door together after she was gone, August following behind after one last sneer at the building. As the assassin accompanying them disappeared into thin air, Fiona looked over at her sister, smiling.

"So, you're finally here. Is it everything you ever thought it would be?" Sasha smiled back, taking a step to stand next to her, glancing at the open door.

Fiona placed her hands on her hips, "Yup, gotta admit…" She hesitated, "Not, everything I imagined."

Sasha grinned, "Ready to make some new friends?"

"Eh sure, why not."

—

Rhys didn't know much about Vault Hunters, having only met two before today (not including Fiona). But so far they all seemed to be;

Scary

Seriously Badass

And able to kill you in less than a second

Their appearances and the way they acted reflected this as well, this is why it confused him when the first vault hunter he saw was a bubbly schoolgirl with red pig-tails.

In fact, for a second he'd thought they'd walked into the wrong building.

"Hey guys! You Gortys and LB's friends?" Vaughn opened his mouth to reply when suddenly her eyes widened as her gaze drifted over to Rhys. "YOU'RE THAT HYPERION NERD!" She yelled, startling Rhys who took a nervous step back.

"I-"

"Oh man, Zero told us how you took down Helios, that was SICK!" She walked up to him poking his head port and arm, Rhys took another step back before she decided to stick a finger into his echo-eye.

"How in hell did he tell them already?" August muttered in the background, but the girl either didn't hear or didn't care.

"Oh, yeah, thanks—" Rhys laughed nervously. The girl seemed to suddenly remember something as she took a step back and held out a robotic hand with a smile.

"Name's Gaige, the mechromancer, you've probably heard aalll about me though." Rhys shook her hand with his own robotic one, vaguely smiling he decided not to tell her he had never heard her name in his life.

"I'm Rhys, and this is Vaughn." He gestured to his bearded friend who waved. "And—"

"You should probably hold all the introductions until everyone's here." Gaige interrupted to suggest, "The way I came is the mess hall, I'll meet up with you guys in a sec…"

They entered through the door she'd come out of, emerging into a slightly larger area, packed tightly with a couple long tables and benches. And although the room was unfamiliar, three familiar 'faces' were to be seen.

"You guys! Oh my gosh!" The adorable robotic voice made them all smile, except August of course. Gortys zoomed over to the closest pair of legs she could find, which happened to be Vaughn's. "I missed you all so much!"

"It's barely been two months." August earned himself a punch from Sasha who scowled at him before turning to the little robot with a smile.

"Hey Gortys, we missed you too." She smiled back as Rhys looked up to see their other robotic friend.

"Loader bot!" Rhys grinned, LB looked back at him, not really capable of showing much emotion.

"Hello friends." He spoke in his flat robotic voice, but they could tell he was happy to see them, "It has been a while."

"A long while." Vaughn agreed with a grin.

"It's good to see both of you, but maybe you could introduce us…" Fiona trailed off looking up with a guarded expression at the group of people sitting on and around the table in front of them, having watched the whole exchange.

Suddenly growing self-conscious, Rhys put on a (fake) smile. "Heyyy, you the vault hunters?" His voice got a bit quieter at the end and he looked over at his best friend for assistance. What he didn't expect, was that Vaughn would step in front of him and speak as calmly as he might speak to a brick wall.

"Hello vault hunters, my name's Vaughn, this is Rhys, Sasha and August." He said clearly, gesturing to them each in turn. We were brought here by Lilith to help for the…" He seemed to search for a better word, only to give up, "war." He finished with a shrug. Rhys was still stunned when one of the vault hunters, a man in military fatigues spoke up with a grunt.

"And who's she." He gestured to Fiona, who folded her arms with a smirk.

"Fiona." She answered before Vaughn could, "I'm a hired vault hunter." The man looked faintly impressed.

"My name's Axton, this here's Maya." He gestured to the lady with short-blue hair sitting to the left of the room who nodded.

"Sup."

"And this is Salvador." 'Salvador' was a short man who looked almost entirely comprised of upper-body muscles. He merely grunted, not looking up from the large rifle he was fiddling with.

"You've already met Zero…" Zero nodded. "Krieg is… off somewhere as usual. And Gaige is nowhere to be seen, also as usual." Axton sighed before Sasha interjected.

"Actually we've already met Gaige."

"Yeah, she's… really… nice." Rhys added with what he hoped was a believable smile.

"That's good, and lastly…" He seemed to brace himself, "Aurelia…" He groaned as the woman behind him gave a dainty wave.

"Hello darlings." She crooned, Rhys looked back at Sasha after she made a sort of choking noise. Her face screwed up in disgust staring at the posh lady's pompous hairdo and fur-lined coat. _'How could she be a vault hunter?'_ He thought to himself, looking back at Axton- who was staring at him for some reason… along with the rest of the room

"Uhh—" Rhys was cut off as Aurelia came down from where she sat, her face looking calm and cold but her nostrils flaring.

"Excuse me," She spoke glamorously, but there was venom behind her tone. And that's when Rhys realised he had not spoken in his head, but out loud. _Oops._

"For your information—" She stopped, looking him up and down before continuing, "you inebriate. I am infetesmly more important than you-"

"Aurelia! Leave him alone."

Surprisingly, the voice came from next to him, where Gaige was suddenly standing, arms folded and donning a sly grin. "He's just a little Hyperion programmer."

"What?" Rhys looked at her, mildly irritated, "Hey, I'm the CEO of the A—" She actually placed a hand over his mouth, transforming his words into angry mumbles.

"He's cool, don't sweat it."

Aurelia seemed to hesitate, then with a huff she strode out of the room, no-one even stopped her leaving.

After she was gone, Gaige looked up to see Rhys trying in vain to pry the robotic hand from his mouth while mumbling incoherently. "Hey, sorry man-" She said letting him go, he gasped for breath and shot a glare at her, "but honestly, I saved your life. So you pretty much owe me one now."

Rhys rolled his eyes, crossing his arms, only to drop them by his sides as soon as he caught sight of Zero watching him.

"I think it's cool you dropped Hyperion." The blue-haired woman, Maya, offered with a smile. "You realised how bad they were, and so you left."

"Taking down the station with you as you went." Salvador chuckled from the corner, that was the first time he'd heard him talk.

"…thanks?" Rhys rubbed his neck awkwardly, still embarrassed about what had happened with Aurelia.

"Thanks for taking that rich snob down a peg by the way." Axton grinned, "So, you a vault hunter in training? Or just a merc?"

Rhys froze, swallowing nervously, Zero glanced at his friends then back at him, tilting his head slightly as he waited for his answer. "I'm not.. really…" He cleared his throat, "I'm not a fighter really, I mostly… hack?"

The group glanced at each other, "Oh." Maya couldn't hide the disappointment in her voice.

"Lame." Axton scoffed, Maya elbowed him in the shoulder. Rhys didn't look at the young girl next to him, she had thought he was actually cool… now he didn't want to see the disappointment and disinterest in her face.

The vault hunters started asking the others why they were brought here, even Axton and Vaughn had a better reason than him. He went to sit against a wall, Gaige didn't follow him, unsurprisingly. So there he sat, alone, watching with a scowl before it melted into a kind of despair. He didn't really belong here, he couldn't shoot a gun or lead a group of people, he could barely punch without…

He sighed.

Their journey together; finding the Gortys project, travelling across Pandora to find her energy chassis, bringing down Helios and opening a vault! He'd thought that had changed him in some way for the better, and sure, he wasn't working for Hyperion anymore but…

He watched as Fiona showed off her wrist-pistol, earning a comment from Axton that made them all laugh. She was one of them, a vault hunter now. Sasha, she was one of the most badass mercenaries he'd ever seen. And even Vaughn had gained confidence and was now leading a colony of Hyperion workers!?

To him it seemed all the adventure had given him was a drop in his self-confidence and countless scars.

Rhys shook his head, "What am I doing?" He muttered, sitting alone feeling sorry for himself was stupid and not going to solve anything.

As his brows were furrowed thinking about this, someone came and sat next to him. For a second he thought it was Sasha, he turned to look at her with a smirk only to see it was the 'mechromancer'. She grinned down at him legs swinging as they didn't quite reach the floor.

"Why the long face man?"

Rhys didn't answer, hardening his gaze on his friends who were now showing off Loader bot's endoskeleton, Rhys' stomach clenched and he looked back at the floor.

"Hey look, I'm not about to get all sappy but I know what it's like to be the noob on the team." Gaige sighed, looking up at the ceiling.

"I'm not— look I've just had some big… changes recently, that's all." He replied, moving his hands as he talked, "I can fight, and I'm actually a pretty good hacker, thank you."

"Yeah, I could shoot a gun pretty okay, but DT did most of the work for me. Plus being a 'kid' really made people underestimate me. But I tend to see that as more of a good thing." Despite her apparently not having listened to a word he said, Rhys was a little curious.

"How did you end up here on Pandora? You can't be from here… right?"

Gaige grinned, "No way, this place blows! I came here after— okay okay, so I was about to win the Eden-5 Youth Science Fair right…"

—

Lilith looked up quickly from the control desk as soon as the door slid open. Mordecai and Brick stumbled in, half-way through sticking med hypos into themselves. Her stomach sank as she saw their irritated expressions.

"No luck Lil." Mordecai groaned as his wounds began to heal rapidly, "Just guardians, like all the others."

Lilith swore under her breath, sweeping a hand through the hologram displayed in front of her of their last lead. Brick let out a groan as he collapsed on the couch, his voice came through muffled by the stained fabric.

"Those guardians really suck."

"Amen." Mordecai raised the bottle he'd snatched from the table, also collapsing into the nearest chair.

"I hope you don't feel that way about all guardians."

The sudden appearance of the guardian caused Mordecai to fall off his chair with a string of curses. Next to his chair Talon gave a small cry, beating his small wings repeatedly until Mordecai was able to get up again and calm him down.

"Hey." Was all Lilith said, they didn't know the guardians name or at least couldn't pronounce it.

"I'm judging by your expressions that your latest expedition was fruitless?" It almost sounded amused, Lilith rolled her eyes as Brick flipped him off from the couch.

"You here to mock us? Or do you have some new information you care to share with us?" She said roughly, walking over to the doorway leading out to the balcony and peering out over the city's centre.

"I have no new information concerning the war—"

Mordecai groaned from over in the corner where he was feeding Talon.

"But I think I may have a lead…"

Lilith turned to look at the guardian with an eyebrow raised, "Really?"

"There is a vault on Elpis that's 'treasure' is what you're looking for; information. It allows the receiver to see into the future."

Now Lilith was really interested, things seemed to finally be working out.

"That's the vault they just came from, it was opened a few years ago. You're saying it can show us what's going to happen in this 'war'?"

"It's already been opened?" The guardian seemed at least mildly surprised.

"Yeah. Athen just told us about it." Brick called, seeming a bit better now as he sat up on the couch with a grin.

"That's why Lil sent us to investigate." Mordecai added with a pointed frown in her direction.

"Finally." Lilith finally breathed with a smirk, "Something is going right. Now we just need to head back over, someone can activate the vault and—"

"Well…" The guardian stopped, thinking before it spoke hesitantly, "There is… one problem…"


End file.
